1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a timing controller that generates control signals in response to an external data enable signal, a display apparatus having the timing controller, and a signal processing method of the timing controller.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A flat-panel display, such as a liquid crystal display, may include a timing controller, a driving IC, and a display panel. The driving IC applies a data signal corresponding to an image to the display panel in response to control signals. The display panel displays the image in response to the data signal. The timing controller generates the control signals in response to a data enable signal DE applied from an external device. The timing controller modifies image data received from the external device into image data that is suitable for the flat-panel display.
As shown in FIG. 1, the data enable signal DE includes an effective period VT of the image data and a blank period BT of the image data. During the effective period VT of the data enable signal DE, the timing controller applies the image data to the driving IC and generates the control signals that control a timing of the image data. During the blank period BT of the data enable signal DE, the timing controller does not apply the image data to the driving IC and does not generate the control signals. The display panel does not display an image during the blank period BT of the data enable signal DE.
However, as shown in FIG. 1, when a data enable signal DE-F is abnormally generated to have a logic high level in an (n−1)th blank period BTn−1, the driving IC in the display apparatus is driven with the second data waveform DATA shown in FIG. 1. An image corresponding to an n-th image data DATAn is momentarily displayed on the display panel in the (n−1)th blank period BTn−1.
Accordingly, the n-th image data DATAn is displayed on the display panel as an abnormal image, which reduces the display quality of the display apparatus.
Thus, there is a need for systems or methods that can improve the display quality of a display apparatus by reducing or eliminating the number of abnormally displayed images.